Coldflash and Legends One-Shots

Dreaming of a White Christmas (Rated PG)

Summary:

Living in Sun City, CA (not by choice), Leonard and Barry prepare for Christmas. But the one thing that Barry wants this year is something that Len can't get for him ...

... or so Barry thinks.

Notes:

Written for ColdFlash Week 2016 for the prompt 'Domestic Life', with a secret prompt thrown in at the end (which I will include in the end notes - no peeking xD)

(See the end of the work for .)

***

"A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a Winter Wonderland ..." Len murmurs, plugging in cords and straightening lawn stakes. He's only half paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth. He's not what one would call a carol man. He doesn't want to hate himself forever for conforming to the norms of suburban splendor.

The life he has now is not a life he ever wanted. Even the things that make it better than he could have possibly dreamed, he would have considered liabilities back in the day. But after forty plus years of thieving, killing, and generally being a public menace, out here in this seven home cul-de-sac, flying farther under the radar than he's ever flown, he's free to raise his newly minted "normal" flag up the pole.

He's not too thrilled with a lot of it, and on any given day, it can get kind of dull.

But he sure does love him some Christmas.

"Hey, Red!" he calls through the screen door. "Come out here and take a look. Tell me what you think."

"In a minute," Barry's melancholy voice answers from inside the house. "I just have to ..." It fades when Barry walks into the kitchen. They've been living in this house going on a year, and Barry still hasn't figured out that his voice doesn't carry from the kitchen to the front porch. That's because they didn't have that problem when they lived together in Barry's loft in Central City. It had a flat, single-layer floor plan, with a clear view from the back bedroom to the front door. Nor in Len's old, rundown safe house, which had only two rooms on the lower level and a single bedroom upstairs. It was easy to hear anyone from any room, no matter where they were inside or out, and ergo, completely defensible.

But this new house (two bedrooms, a guest room, a kitchen, a dining room, a den, and a living room), located in a gated community, has been a lot for them to get used to. It's definitely bigger than any house Len has ever lived in ... legally.

Len had to hand it to the federal government. The last guy that Len knew personally in the witness protection program ended up living in a hotel room for three-and-a-half years.

Someone high up in the chain of command pulled out all of the stops on this one.

Probably as a thank you to Barry for his years of service to the public as The Flash, even though Barry wasn't the person who needed protecting. Len, who the government was willing to make disappear in exchange for going turncoat and providing them with some salient testimony, just happens to benefit from Barry's heroism.

"I'm coming, I'm coming ..."

Barry steps onto the front porch as Len plugs in the last of the animatronic snowmen.

"Well, whaddya think?" Len asks, nodding in thanks as Barry hands him a glass of lemonade. Barry looks from the sweaty brow of his husband to the decorations flooding their front lawn. Len has every inch of grass covered in lights, reindeer, elves, snowmen, something that looks like a cat playing with a Christmas ornament (though Barry would bet five bucks that it's supposed to be a bear), and a pink flamingo wearing a scarf and a Santa hat.